


The Difference A Year Makes

by bananacosmicgirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-08
Updated: 2007-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 16:59:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14877755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananacosmicgirl/pseuds/bananacosmicgirl
Summary: Written and originally posted in 2007 or so. It was my first HP het fic, because I simply felt like it. I don’t really sail either of these ships but it was fun to write. Enjoy!





	The Difference A Year Makes

**Author's Note:**

> Written and originally posted in 2007 or so. It was my first HP het fic, because I simply felt like it. I don’t really sail either of these ships but it was fun to write. Enjoy!

_June_

Harry is back.

He’s only there for a meeting with Dumbledore, but she’d been happy about it. She gladly says yes to his invitation to go to Hogsmeade to catch up. She doesn’t quite notice – or care – when the alcohol starts seeping down her throat, and his, intoxicating them both and making them lose their usual inhibitions around each other.

She’s has wanted him for years. He broke up with her after mere months because of fear for her safety but it hasn’t stopped her wanting him. It hasn’t stopped her love.

They fall bed, intoxicated and horny. She feels his lips on her, everywhere on her, leaving burning marks. Teeth nipping at her throat. Hands travelling over her body, making her skin tingle.

She comes, and then he does the same, and they lie panting together, limbs tangled and sweaty. They fell asleep together.

When she wakes up, he is gone.

_July_

The apartment is small; it’s only one room and the tiny kitchen. To Ginny, who’s been sharing a room with four class mates for seven years, it’s heaven.

She hangs curtains and places the flower her mother gave her as a moving-out gift on the window sill. Then she drops down onto her bed, worn out. She’s been moving furniture all morning and even with magic it’s heavy work.

But she wants to do heavy work because it keeps her from thinking.

Tears start to burn behind her eyelids.

Voldemort deserved to die.

The Daily Prophet lies beside her. It’s a week old now but she hasn’t been able to throw it away. The words cut deeply into her but she can’t look away.

_‘The Boy Who Lived Dies’_

Voldemort deserved to die, but Harry didn’t.

She buries her head in her pillow and cries.

_August_

She doesn’t have morning sickness very often, but after a while, she realises that that is what it is. Sometimes, she has to run from her room at the Ministry sometimes and puke her guts out.

She does a pregnancy test and it’s positive. It’s only confirmation for her; she already knows. She senses it in her body.

She doesn’t know what to feel about carrying Harry’s baby. There has been no other; there has never been anyone else.

She knows she has to decide what to do. She knows people will talk ill of her if she’s pregnant out of wedlock and she knows that she only has a little while longer to decide on an abortion.

Yet in the depths of her mind she knows she could never kill Harry’s baby.

_September_

When she tells her mother, her mother cries. Ginny can’t tell if it’s happy tears or sad and neither can her mother.

She sits with her mother and talks for hours. They are alone in the house; all the boys have moved out just as she has and her father is at work. Ginny should be too, but she took the day off. She wanted her mother to be the first to know.

When she leaves, she feels lighter. She places a hand on her stomach. She’s gained a tad bit of weight but her stomach is still flat. Still, in her mind’s eye she can picture the foetus floating around within her, tiny but full of life.

Her baby.

Hers and Harry’s baby.

She walks to the park and takes off her shoes and her socks. It’s raining, but it’s still warm. The grass beneath her feet feels refreshing and the tears don’t show in the rain.

_October_

She is starting to look pregnant, but hides it beneath layers of clothes. She finds robes are truly fine to hide pregnancy, at least in the beginning. She doesn’t want her colleagues at the Ministry to find out just yet. She’s strong, but she knows that their comments and judging looks will hurt her.

Hermione stops by some evenings. Ginny has told her of the baby and they talk about it a lot.

There is a knock on the door and Ginny is startled from her reverie. The door opens and she is staring at Malfoy’s pale face. He looks just as shocked to see her.

Without a word, he hands her a stack of papers; she owled for them earlier. When she realises this, she looks at Malfoy’s clothes. ‘Expressus – faster than owls’, it says on the fabric on his chest. He’s from the delivery firm.

Malfoy sneers at her. “If that is all,” he says and turns. His robes billow after him and he reminds her of Snape.

She is left staring after him, stack of papers in her hands.

_November_

She is showing now, even through the robes. She has told her co-workers and they haven’t been as nasty as she thought they would. Some, mostly the older ones, glance at her disdainfully. The younger ones, some her age, are only supportive.

Malfoy has been forced to her office twice. He never speaks to her; only hands her what she’s ordered to be picked up and then he strides away. She thinks he looks hot and blames it on her hormones. The pregnancy books say she might be hornier now than usual.

She goes shopping and when she passes a store that sells baby-clothes, she can’t help herself. She buys a little green shirt, because she doesn’t know what sex the baby will be but she wants to buy something.

When Malfoy comes around again, it’s been several weeks. She’s grown and he stares at her as though he’s her superior and she’s done something bad. She glares back.

He speaks for the first time and his tone is cold. “I shouldn’t be surprised. A Weasel such as yourself, probably fucking some Mudblood and getting pregnant immediately.”

She curses him before he has the time to blink and then, using ‘ _Mobili corpus_ ’, she moves him outside. It’s raining and it’s cold and she dumps his unconscious body on the muddy pavement. His blond hair gets wet and dirty and she smiles.

_December_

It’s Christmas and Ginny stands by the window at the Burrow. One hand is resting on her belly; she’s showing clearly now. She has only three months to go, then her child will be born. The baby kicks and does somersaults and Ginny rubs her hand against the stretched skin.

She thinks back on Christmas a year earlier. A happier time. Harry was here, taking a few hours off from searching for the Horcruxes to celebrate the holiday with what he considered was his family. His hair was longer and he was thin and lean. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw him but all they did that night was talk.

She wonders what she would have said if she’d known what a difference a year would make.

Bill has made a crib for her baby to sleep in. It’s the best Christmas present she gets. It’s beautiful, white and big enough for the baby to be able to grow a bit. She thanks her brother with a long hug. He hugs back carefully as though she’s made of glass. For once, it doesn’t anger her; she’s not fragile but the baby is.

Late at night, Ginny visits the graveyard and places a white rose at Harry’s tomb stone.

_January_

Malfoy is sent to deliver goods and paper every now and then. She hasn’t spoken a word to her since she hexed him and she is only thankful. She has enough to think about.

But the next time when Malfoy comes knocking on her door, Ginny gets up too quickly. She gets woozy and faints on the floor. When she comes to it again, Malfoy is bent over her and she is greatly surprised when she thinks she can see worry in his eyes.

He helps her stand up and tells her that she should probably see a healer. He tells her with the sneer firmly back in place but she knows that he wouldn’t say it if he didn’t care at all.

The healer tells her her baby is fine but that she should be a bit careful because her blood pressure is rather low. She nods but her thoughts are on Malfoy.

When Malfoy comes the next time, she invites him to a quick cup of tea. He accepts, though he looks as though he thinks it’s a trap, and leaves soon, saying he has to work.

_February_

They have spoken over tea at work a few times now and it has gone well. He has even almost apologized for his comment on her pregnancy. Finally, Ginny gathers the courage to invite him over. She notes his surprise and her own nervousness.

She cleans her home and bakes cookies that only get a tad burned.

The doorbell rings and Malfoy stands outside. It’s snowing and there are snowflakes on his dark robes and his hair is wet.

He hands her a wrapped package. It’s soft and when she unwraps it, she finds a teddy bear.

“I thought the baby could, you know— play with it, perhaps,” he says uncertainly and she knows when he looks up at her that he has fallen in love with her. She doesn’t mind; she thinks she’s doing the same with him.

_March_

She has her baby boy and he has black hair and clear blue eyes. It hurts like hell to give birth to him and it takes fourteen hours for the baby to leave her body but finally he’s lying there on her chest. He sucks milk from her nipple and she gasps at the unfamiliar feeling, love spreading in her chest.

Hermione holds her hand through the ordeal and she smiles at Ginny when the boy is finally out. She tells her that he is beautiful and Ginny smiles because she knows that already.

When Hermione leaves Malfoy comes in.

“He looks like Potter,” says Malfoy but he doesn’t sound angry.

He kisses her forehead and she uses the hand that is not resting atop her baby to pull him down into their first real kiss.

He tastes of coffee.

_April_

The baby takes all of her time. She loves him, but longs for the nights when she could sleep undisturbed.

She names him Theo because it means divine gift; he is her divine gift. Her gift from Harry.

She thinks of Harry often. When the baby looks up at her with blue eyes that she knows will turn green, she wishes that Harry would have had the chance to meet his son. She thinks he would have been excited about his baby.

Draco – Draco now, not Malfoy – sleeps at her place even though the baby screams. She enjoys his company and his kisses and though she doesn’t feel attractive, he shows her that she is. Around the baby, he is a bit hesitant at first and she thinks it’s because the baby is Harry’s and not his. After a while, Draco relaxes around Theo and Theo seems to enjoy his arms almost as much as Ginny’s.

_May_

When Draco drops down to one knee and asks her to marry him, Ginny is shocked but very happy. It is in the evening, out on the tiny balcony of her apartment and they have just eaten dinner. Theo is sleeping in his cot and they’re enjoying the moment of peace when he asks her.

He treads the ring onto her finger and they both smile.

She thinks of Harry and hopes that Harry would be happy for her. She will never forget him for as long as she lives; in Theo she has a constant reminder. It is a sweet reminder and it no longer makes her cry.

Draco kisses her and she melts against him. She knows this is where she is supposed to be.

What a difference a year makes.

_The end._

 

 


End file.
